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As NACWA members gear up for the Association’s Developments in Clean Water Law Seminar, November 16-18, 2011 in Charleston, S.C., this Member Update provides committee summaries from the Association’s 2011 Summer Conference & 41st Annual Meeting in July.  The committee discussions that took place this summer will undoubtedly serve as the building blocks for the Law Seminar’s strategic discussions.  NACWA’s committee structure forms the backbone of its advocacy efforts and the Association strongly encourages member agency participation.  Committee handouts and presentations from the Summer Conference are available on NACWA’s 2011 Summer Conference website.  A current list of the committee leadership and members is available on NACWA’s website.  To join NACWA committees, please contact Laura Cobb at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

The registration information for the Law Seminar will be available on NACWA’s Conferences and Professional Development webpage within the next couple weeks.  The hotel reservation deadline is October 21, 2011 and you can reserve your hotel room today by contacting the Francis Marion Hotel at 843/722-0600 to guarantee the special conference rate of $149 single/double.  Be sure to mention that you are a NACWA’s attendee.  You may also make your reservation online at www.francismarioncharleston.com and enter the group code, NACWA.

Climate & Energy Committee

Chair, Antonio Quintanilla, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, Ill.
Vice-Chair, Peter Ruffier, Clean Water Services, Ore.

The Climate Change Committee began with an announcement that the Committee’s name had changed and would now be called the Climate and Energy Committee, adding a focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy options at wastewater utilities.  Discussion then began with a review of the tools that EPA is developing to help drinking water and wastewater utilities evaluate the impacts of climate change and plan appropriate adaptation measures, including the Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool (CREAT).  Tony Quintanilla, Chair of the Climate and Energy Committee and Assistant Director of Maintenance and Operations at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRDGC), has participated in EPA’s Climate Ready Water Utilities Workgroup and is now assisting EPA with development of the second version of CREAT.  CREAT helps utilities assess the risk of potential climate change impacts on their assets, operations, and missions and an energy efficiency module will be added to the next version of the tool.

The Committee then discussed NACWA’s successful advocacy work to ensure that EPA deferred regulating biogenic emissions from wastewater treatment processes, as well as from combustion of biosolids and biogas, for three years under Clean Air Act (CAA) programs that regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  NACWA has also nominated a wastewater expert to the EPA Science Advisory Board expert panel that will study biogenic emissions during the three-year deferral and make a final recommendation to EPA on how the emissions should be handled under CAA regulations.  Committee members were also reminded that reporting of GHG emissions is required in September under EPA’s Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule for utilities that meet a certain threshold of emissions.

The final discussion of the Committee was focused on energy management, with Quintanilla providing an overview of the energy efficiency measures that have been taken by MWRDGC and the resulting cost savings.  The Alliance to Save Energy has started its Watergy program to help utilities find energy savings and would like to work with NACWA members.

Facility & Collection System Committee

Co-Chair, Martin Umberg, Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati, Ohio
Co-Chair, Ben Horenstein, East Bay Municipal Utility District, Calif.

The lead-off topic for the Facility & Collection System Committee meeting was EPA’s July 14-15 facilitated workshop on a possible path forward for a comprehensive sanitary sewer overflow (SSO) rule.  NACWA participated in the session, with Ben Horenstein, Manager of Environmental Services at East Bay Municipal Utility District and Co-Chair of NACWA’s Facility and Collection System Committee, and Lisa Hollander, Special Liaison for Legislative and Regulatory Affairs at the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District and Chair of NACWA’s Legal Affairs Committee, representing NACWA at the workshop, and both provided their assessment of the workshop discussions for the Committee.  Jim Hanlon, Director of EPA’s Office of Wastewater Management, also attended the Committee meeting.  Hanlon noted that there were many areas of agreement between the stakeholders that participated in the workshop and he expected that EPA would proceed with a comprehensive rule, although he could not predict a timeframe for this to occur.

The Committee discussed many of the issues that were covered at the workshop, including “extreme events” outside of a utility’s control that may lead to SSOs and the need for effective capacity, management, operations, and maintenance (CMOM) programs as the measure of compliance.  The need for further stakeholder education on the technical issues related to management of peak wet weather flows, particularly parallel treatment of flows at the treatment plant and treatment at facilities in the collection systems, was also emphasized by Committee members.

Dean Marriott, Director of the City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services and a NACWA Board member, provided an update on the Targeted Action Fund (TAF) project that the Oregon Association of Clean Water Agencies (Oregon ACWA) is conducting to write permit language that would authorize SSOs in Oregon under certain conditions.  The proposed language uses different design storms for the winter and summer months.

Marty Umberg, Sewer Chief Engineer at the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati and Co-Chair of the Facility and Collection System Committee, also gave a presentation on “hybrid” sewer systems – systems that were designed as sanitary systems, but before a wastewater treatment plant existed – which would benefit from technology-based standards and allowance of peak excess flow treatment facilities in the collection system.

Legislative Policy Committee

Chair, Karen Pallansch, Alexandria Sanitation Authority, Va.
Vice Chair, Tatyana Arsh, City of Columbus Division of Sewerage & Drainage, Ohio

The Legislative Policy Committee met on Thursday, July 21 during NACWA’s 2011 Summer Conference in Chicago under the new leadership of Karen Pallansch, General Manager of the Alexandria Sanitation Authority, who assumed the Chairperson’s role given her appointment as Secretary on the Association’s Executive Committee.  The committee participants discussed several legislative items that NACWA is pursuing.  First, George Hawkins provided a detailed summary of proposed legislation in support of NACWA’s Money Matters campaign, followed by a discussion of strategy in getting the legislation introduced and ultimately passed.  Committee members asked several questions about how the proposal would actually be implemented but, in general, were supportive of the approach taken in the draft legislation.  Next steps in the process includes approaching Members of Congress interested in working with us to introduce the package and pursuing hearings within the appropriate House and Senate Committees.  Second, the committee heard a report from Ken Kirk, NACWA’s Executive Director, on the opportunities for funding in the current Congress and an overview of the concept of a Water Infrastructure Financing and Innovations Authority (WIFIA), a proposal for opening up the Treasury window to leverage loans for water and wastewater projects.  Finally, the Committee discussed NACWA efforts to shepherd an advocacy effort to strengthen the links between agricultural policy and water quality relative to nutrient control.  The next meeting of the Legislative Policy Committee is scheduled for NACWA’s 2012 Winter Conference.

Regulatory Policy Committee

Chair, Steve Pearlman, Metro Wastewater Reclamation District, Colo.
Vice Chair, Norman LeBlanc, Hampton Roads Sanitation District, Va.

The Regulatory Policy Committee meeting began with a regulatory update discussion on a list of regulations that have been newly promulgated or that are currently under development and will impact the clean water community in the next year or two.  Updates were provided on sanitary sewer overflows and recent EPA activity on a potential rule, EPA’s work on a new stormwater rule, pretreatment standards for dental clinics, and new recreational water quality criteria, among other issues.  The Committee also had an extended discussion on nutrient issues and the Association’s ongoing litigation regarding sewage sludge incineration.  The Committee reviewed and approved a Targeted Action Fund (TAF) request to collaborate with several California clean water organizations on source control efforts related to pesticide use and consumer products that have an impact on effluent and biosolids quality.  The NACWA Board of Directors subsequently approved the funding for this effort.

Water Quality Committee

Chair, Barbara Biggs, Metro Wastewater Reclamation District, Colo.
Vice Chair, James Pletl, Hampton Roads Sanitation District, Va.

The Water Quality Committee began with a detailed presentation on several water quality related issues impacting the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.  The Committee discussed several recent developments regarding national nutrient policy, including testimony NACWA provided to Congress on the issue of numeric nutrient criteria and several legal efforts with national relevance where NACWA is making sure the national clean water perspective is effectively voiced.  Committee members were updated on the discussions during a June stakeholder meeting on EPA’s efforts to develop new recreational water quality criteria.  The new criteria, which will be released in draft form in early 2012, will apply to all waters designated for primary contact recreation.  EPA’s current thinking would not result in major changes to the current criteria values, but a new rapid test method and corresponding indicator values would be added.  Committee members were encouraged to participate in an upcoming EPA webinar on the criteria scheduled for September 20.  The Committee also discussed the importance of including water quality trading and associated implementation issues in the Association’s ongoing dialogue with EPA on addressing nutrient-related impacts.

Joint Legal Affairs and Biosolids Management Committee

Chair (Legal Affairs Committee), Lisa Hollander, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, Ohio
Vice Chair (Legal Affairs Committee), Hilary Meltzer, NYC Department of Law, N.Y.
Chair (Biosolids Management Committee), Dave Taylor, Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District, Wis.

The Biosolids Management and Legal Affairs Committees met jointly to discuss NACWA’s ongoing efforts to challenge two recent EPA rules impacting sewage sludge incineration and, more broadly, the use of biosolids as a fuel.  The joint committee meeting began with a discussion of non-incineration biosolids issues, including EPA’s ongoing efforts to determine what if any changes are necessary to the Part 503 regulations.  EPA is completing risk assessments for ten pollutants that may lead to additional Part 503 regulations and is working to conduct similar assessments for a broader list of pollutants, including many contaminants of emerging concern (CEC).  The assessment work on the ten pollutants will be completed this fall, but the work on the CECs will be long-term effort.  Updates on the Water Environment Research Foundation’s (WERF) ongoing biosolids research and recent developments in the biosolids land application challenge in Kern County California were also provided.

Committee members then transitioned into a joint discussion of the administrative petition for reconsideration of EPA’s Clean Air Act standards for sewage sludge incinerators (SSIs) recently filed by NACWA, as well as the Association’s pair of legal challenges to the SSI standards and related “definition of solid waste” rulemaking.  Meeting participants received an update on the current status of NACWA legal efforts on the SSI issue, including planned next steps, as well as an update on the important role that NACWA’s Sewage Sludge Incineration Advocacy Coalition (SSIAC) is playing in support of the Association’s advocacy efforts.  The joint committee meeting concluded with a discussion of other NACWA litigation-related matters, including on-going cases regarding nutrient regulations in Florida and non-point source issues in the Chesapeake Bay.  The meeting also featured a presentation from the Chicago Metropolitan Water Reclamation District on its consent decree and pending litigation relating to its management of wet weather flows, disinfection, and other issues.

Stormwater Management Committee

Chair, Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, Ohio
Vice Chair, Jill Piatt Kemper, City of Aurora Water Department, Colo.

The Stormwater Management Committee meeting kicked off with an update regarding both EPA’s on-going efforts to develop a new national stormwater rule as well as the Agency’s follow-up to its controversial November 2010 stormwater memo.  Committee members were informed of EPA’s most recent thinking on the stormwater rule, including details on a possible urban retrofit requirement, as well as the Agency’s planned next steps to release the rule proposal for public comment by the end of September.  EPA is also currently reviewing public comment on the November memo and is expected to make a decision whether to withdraw it or reissue it with modifications by the end of August.  Additionally, there was discussion of needed planning and coordination efforts for NACWA and stormwater utility members to comment on the rule proposal when it is released in September, and NACWA will be forming a work group to help guide the Association’s comment efforts.  The committee then turned to a discussion of developments regarding stormwater fee issues, including reaction to recent legislation clarifying that stormwater charges qualify as legitimate utility fees and not as taxes and directing payment by federal government facilities.  There has been recent litigation on this legislation that NACWA will be closely tracking.  The meeting wrapped up with a presentation on the use of green infrastructure and other innovative technologies to address stormwater issues in the Chicago metropolitan area.  A copy of the PowerPoint from this presentation, along with other related materials from the meeting, is available on the NACWA website.

Utility Management Committee

Chair, Kurt Egelhofer, Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility, Alaska
Vice Chair, Tom Sigmund, Green Bay Metropolitan Sewerage District, Wis.

The Utility Management Committee discussed a range of ongoing NACWA initiatives, including the 2011 Financial Survey and work to compile the results into the final survey report, which will be released in early 2012.  The Committee had an extended discussion on the 2010 NACWA Index survey, including the final regional breakdown charts from the 2010 NACWA Index, which are now available on NACWA’s website.  Potential changes were discussed for the 2011 Index survey to better capture how wholesale agencies charge for sewer service.  The Committee also discussed whether older Index values should be updated on an annual basis if new information is submitted, or whether the results should be held static for a period of years before being updated to avoid confusion in year to year comparisons.  Updates were also provided on CleanWater Central, the Effective Utility Management effort and work to upgrade the initiative’s current website, as well as NACWA’s ongoing involvement in the International Organization for Standardization’s work on asset management.